WPP’s Sorrell Urges ‘Cooperation’ Between ComScore and Rentrak on Measurement

WPP PLC Chief Executive Martin Sorrell said he welcomes more "cooperation" between comScore and Rentrak to create a more competitive measurement service as advertising clients become increasingly concerned about digital ad viewability and ratings accuracy.

We "welcome them coming together " to provide a "meaningful competitive service" in measurement, Mr. Sorrell said Wednesday during a conference call with U.S. analysts about WPP's earnings results.

Mr. Sorrell was asked later on the call specifically about the potential for comScore's and Rentrak's businesses to come together. In response, Mr. Sorrell said "you have to ask comScore and Rentrak."

"But we would welcome cooperation between the two of any nature to provide a better measurement product line," he added. "It's clear from our conversations with clients they are extremely concerned about viewability, online viewability."

Greater collaboration between comScore, known for its digital measurement capabilities, and Rentrak, which uses set-top box data to measure television viewing, could create a more formidable competitor to Nielsen NV, the biggest player in the media measurement space in the U.S. There's growing demand for better measurement of content and ad campaigns across TV, the Web and mobile devices as marketers try to keep up with consumers' shifting habits. Nielsen’s ratings are firmly entrenched as the main currency in the roughly $70 billion U.S. TV ad market, and it won’t be easy to eat into its dominance.

Mr. Sorrell said that a major client this week expressed "great concern" about online advertising viewability, value and verification. Clients are restricting the growth of their digital video spending because they aren't getting the necessary verification from measurement services like Nielsen to convince them of the value of that spending, he said.

The client told him that the value of video on Facebook and Google are not proven and there are concerns about viewability, Mr. Sorrell said.

"This is a really big issue," Mr. Sorrell said on an earlier U.K. conference call. "And the Nielsen measurement system in the U.S. has not grappled with it. Yes, not yet. And that's obviously why we invested in Rentrak and comScore."

Mr. Sorrell further criticized Nielsen, arguing that it's "not up to scratch" and overestimates online viewership and underestimates traditional TV.

"We're not sure the market will view comScore (or Rentrak) as 'independent' given the largest buyer of U.S. media owns a significant stake of those companies," Mr. Juenger wrote in a June report. Nielsen may have a "huge (insurmountable?) advantage" when it comes to measuring audiences across all platforms because of its installed TV capability, he wrote.